Beyond the Broken Bones
by Lor-tan
Summary: Way before there was a Harry Potter, or even a Hogwarts, there was another war between the Dark and the Light. Only, then the Hero of the Light was a lot more Grey.
1. Chapter 1

I'd always been a bit strange, and I'd always known it. I was the only one in Ardon who saw the little people dancing about the rest of the world, oozing and dripping shadows like tar, ribbons instead of hair. The only one who saw the long feathery dragons sliding through the air like banners, or twirl about fruit trees. And certainly the only one with a personal anomaly stalking his movement where ever he went, or at least doing so when it wasn't already in him. I don't actually know what it is. It's been seeping into my skin since I was a child, finding the nearest available flesh wound and hiding inside my body, taking up home with my blood, running through my veins like a wolf running a trail. I've seen it as a wolf. And a dog. And a girl, with long antlers and the speckled lower body of a newborn whitetail. I've seen it as a bird, I've seen it as an ordinary child, boy and girl, and I've even seen it take the form of one of the dragons, with twin tail feathers longer then my arm, and a mouth like a lamprey. I cried out in fear when I saw it like that, because the teeth scared me, and it immediately turned back into my favorite form, the delicate navy colored fox with the shining stars speckled across its fur like diamonds and the tiny black horns that curl behind it's white ears and the long dainty paws that leave the marks of its pad glowing on the ground. It's my favorite, simply because it's the prettiest thing I've ever seen. I'm probably also the only one to name such a creature, and certainly the only one to give it such a ridiculous name, but I was young at the time, and only learned to regret such things recently.

Yeah, I named her Bob.

xXx

Now, first of all, I feel I should probably introduce myself. My name is Emerald. And I was born to do great things. At least, that's what my mother always tells me, whenever I do something strange and everyone else oohs and ahhs like I've preformed a miracle. Whenever one of the little people in the shadows, the imps, conjures something pretty for me to play with, or one of the dragons make it rain so I can dance in the puddles. They give me the credit, because one, they can't see the imps and the dragons, and two they're too afraid that if they give the credit to a non-human, we'll suddenly not be the most powerful race anymore. I don't see why they think that. We were never the most powerful race to begin with, that would be the angels. Yes, I've seen angels. My awe at the sight nearly blew my head off, and Bob had to block my view of the beings before I could go insane. Yet for months then on, I can only enter a room left foot first or I'd go ballistic, so I'm not sure she was all that successful. Afterwards, she looked me straight in the eye. She was in a dog form at the moment, a giant papillon with a striped tail and forepaws, and eyelashes that look like daisy petals around a glowing green center.

"Emerald," She said, tight faced and grim as all get out. "You shouldn't look at angels. They'll blow your head off, and do so gloriously, and you're liable to burst into flames if they meet your gaze."

"Are angels bad?" I'd asked her, curious for the answer. As it turned out, her answer had just made me wonder more.

"No more then a cockatrice, dear. They can't really help it that they destroy you, it's just how they are. It's involuntary, usually." See what I mean? Raise your hand if you knew what a cockatrice was by the time you were seven. Yeah, I didn't think so. Still though, since then I don't just go looking pointlessly up into the sky, now do I?

Anyhow, the point is that I don't really do half of what everyone else in the village thinks I do. When I get upset it's not me throwing those things around, it's that ghost that likes to visit me seeing an opportunity to cause mischief and pouncing on it like a cat. (Her name is Millie, so I didn't do so bad that time.) And when I mutter strange things, I'm not reciting spells, I'm just talking to the invisible butterflies with the pretty wing patterns I sometimes see fluttering about when it's hot outside.

And I'm certainly not the one who talked a deer into coming to the town square during a famine so we could eat it. To be honest, I was just walking in the woods and she joined me. I didn't mean for her to die. I cried when it happened, big fat tears, and the adults all started apologizing, but they kept chopping her up and rationing her anyway so I don't think they really meant it. And even though I was too old to cry, none of the other kids would ever dream of teasing me for it, because once a bully tried to push me over and Bob bit him. And Bob can be poisonous if she wants to be, so he died two days later in bed. I think his parents were the only ones who cared, but everyone else was sending flowers so I sent some of my own. Later, when my mother came to me, I learned that what I had sent weren't flowers, but thorns. I had thought they were pretty though, because they had little bright red tips. Turns out that was just my blood from when I picked them. But Bob had loved them, so.

That was when people started praising me more, as if trying to keep on my good side. Someone's doing that now, the town drunk. He's fawning over me like he always does ever since I asked one of the imps to steal him a bottle, because he was crying in the ditch and I didn't know how else to make him stop and shut up. Millie joined in and between the two of them they stole upwards of a dozen bottles. Since then Millie still leaves him one every now and then, and it's become a game for the imps to sneak sips. Then they wonder tipsily around for hours afterward and bother me until I rub them between their horns.

Imps have pretty little horns, that're more like antennae, just harder and they don't taste the air like the butterflies antennae do. They're more like liquid ribbons that have been stuck to their skulls with tree sap, or something, or have just grown into them. Either way, they like it if you rub right at the beginning, like a cat likes with its ears.

The drunk mumbles something to me, and I flash him a dazzling grin.

"Sir, excuse me!" I tell him cheerfully and dart off, Bob hanging off my shoulders in the form of a cat with bat wings and fangs like a vampires. Vampires are actually pretty decent creatures, as long as you don't let them bite you. They like water, and sometimes gather around a set of pools out in the woods in the evening and swim, as long as it isn't sunny, and I've joined them before.

As I run through the village several people call out to me, greetings and well wishes. A group of several girls I know start running after me and I slow down so they can catch up. All children in Ardon are taught to run and jump and swim from an early age, regardless of gender, so some girls are just as fast as the boys. As they get older though it gets harder, because of all the skirts, one once told me.

Girls in Ardon were at least three skirts, minimun. The first one is really short and usually black or white, and made of really sheer fabric. It takes several layers sewn together to get the desired puff like style, and then it just gets covered by the second skirt, called a ghiri. Ghiri's are just an inch or two shorter then the outside skirts, and usually bright and patterned. Last are the outside skirts, and you can have as many of them as you want. They're always solid colored though, and usually have lots of pleats so that they bell out around you. Then for shirts girls wear a hemmed up rectangle of whatever fabric they want, called a chzech and it buttons up in the back, and in the winter they wear shawls to cover up their shoulders, but during the rest of the year they don't because no one in Ardon really burns anymore. And you may be wondering why I know so much about girls and their clothes, but actually the reason is really easy. Until you're big enough, both little boys and little girls wear skirts and chzechs, and then when we're big enough boys start wearing leather leggings and these pretty beaded sashes around our waists to hold the leggings up. We can still wear chzechs, but most boys wear the shirts traders bring, and I wear the linen shoulder things decorated with beads that future mages wear to mark us as special. They're basically like two sashes that go over my head to form an X over my chest and back.

I don't think I'm a mage, though.

One of the girls catches up, one of my friends, an older girl named Mayle. She's wearing a purple outer skirt and a metal bracelet on both wrist, and her black ears stand out strong against her dyed yellow hair. Mayle and her mother came here from Birk, so their ears are darker then any of us, because everyone in Ardon had fair hair and pale ears. Mayle died her hair to fit in better, but her and her moms ears are still black, and they're long, so long they droop a bit, and my mother calls them ridiculously fluffy.

"Emerald!" She greets, panting a bit, and I slow down to a trot so that she can catch her breath and the others can catch up. There are three other girls, one in brown named Jesse, one in grey named Jenna, and the little one with tritails I think is named Juliana, but I'm not sure. With them is one of the boys, Jinx, and he nods before grabbing Jesse and Jenna and pulling them away, telling them that their mother wants them home by now.

"Meaning he just doesn't want to get caught up with you." Bob comments from my shoulder, but no one else can hear her, and sure enough I can hear him grumbling to his sisters about hanging out with me as they walk away. Sometimes parents tell their children to stay away from the things they fear, Bob told me once. I didn't cry that time, I just felt mad. I'm not going to hurt their children. Mayle and Juliana stay, though, and the latter is giving me a smile and pointing to her mouth proudly.

"Looh, Eh-er-al!" She says and grins at me and then I notice a telltale black hole in her smile that explains her difficulty in pronouncing my name.

"Oh! You lost a tooth!" I only have a few teeth left to lose, since I'm ten, but Juliana is only six so this is just her second, I think. "That's amazing! Good job, I bet you'll get lots of presents tonight!" In Ardon, losing a tooth is like losing part of you childhood, but not in a bad way. Like, once they're all gone you're almost ready to be an adult, but until then you just get a gift each time one comes loose. Juliana giggles happily and runs off to show someone else, leaving just Bob, Mayle and I.

"Thank you, Emerald. She's been wanting to tell you about that since it came out earlier." She tells me, fiddling with one of her bracelets, and I smile as gently as I can.

"No problem, she's a nice little girl. Do you need anything?" She looks puzzled for a moment, before blushing and waving her hands.

"Ah, no! Um, do you need to be somewhere?" She asks, and I nod as politely as I can without looking annoyed.

"Oh... Goodbye?" I return the farewell and bolt, an imp joining me and bouncing at my side and Bob flying behind me. She looks somewhat tired though, so I decide to give her a break. I slow down a bit and lift my arm to my face, then bite myself at the wrist. It's a messy wound, and blood seeps out immediately, making me feel dizzy already. When I first started doing this for Bob, my mother thought I was possessed and had screamed each time, but eventually she grew used to me biting myself and nothing happening. As I pull my face back blood begins to drip from the gash, and I see Bob eyeing it eagerly. I hold my bleeding arm out, offering it to her, and with a quiet "thank you" she grabs it, sticking first her paw into the wound and then her whole leg begins to melt into it, like water seeping out of a hole in a water-skin, but instead of dripping out she's dripping in. I've stopped moving by now, and am standing around the edge of a building where no one can see me as the rest of her silver tabby body follows her leg, taking shelter in my body and joining my blood. It's kind of ghastly but I can't look away, I never can, because it's grossly fascinating, almost addicting. It feels funny too, like you're being filled to much and you're supposed to burst any moment now, but you never do. You're just left feeling too full until you get used to the feeling, and then when she comes out again I'm suddenly too empty. It's weird.

When she's in me the wound seals up, the skin being pulled together from the inside, and I wipe the blood off as best I can with a handful of grass before heading home. My family lives outside the village, on a hill, and I have to make it there in time for supper.

xXx

So there you go, another story from Ren that is hopefully not too bad. And if I do finish this, then yeah, it's going to be Harry Potter. But this is like the founders time, not when the books take place, so it's not _really_ going to be Harry Potter. Just, like, in the same universe as Harry Potter.

Please review, and thank you for your time!


	2. Chapter 2

Supper in Ardon, much like most suppers in this area of Ritia, is fairly simple. You wash your hands, sit quitely, and eat. Dinner conversation isn't big here, unlike in Birk, where Mayle told me they always talked while eating. On the other hand, in Birk they don't have amazing deserts every meal. So. Here in Ardon, and most of the neighboring villages, sweets and cakes are an amazing thing. My mother in particular is known because she makes these fantastic little cakes, just enough for one person, and then she coates them in a thick icing made of sugar, flour, lemons and milk. Then she sprinkles more sugar over the top, and puts a piece of walnut perfectly centered on top. Bob doesn't like nuts though, so even though I usually share with her I still get it. I love nuts, they taste so... nutty.

Don't judge me, I'm ten.

Anyhow, we've finished desert, it was squares of soft bread with jam, honey, and nutmeg spread and sprinkled on it, and my father sent me out to play again. My father is tall and stocky, and his beard is starting to turn grey. They don't look like they belong together, my parents. My mother is soft, all gentle curves and nervous smiles, but my father is all stomping and rough voice. He still treats me gently, though, and lets me do whatever I want, but I think it's only because he's afraid of me too that he lets me play so much, or study, or go to the mage classes. I like the mages, even if I don't think I am one, so I always go. They're not scared of me. They can't see the things I can, but some of them can control fire like it was a toy, and some can speak with normal animals, so they accept the weird things I do, and don't fear me. My parents though, and most of the villaige, do, and Bob says that's actually good. She never tells me why, though.

I have about an hour to go until it's dark, and I decide to go visit the vampires.

It doesn't take long to reach the twin pools in the wood, and as I reach them I see a few daring vamps are already wading in and diving. Vampires are interesting creatures, I think, because most of the lore is true, but not true at the same time. It's like, each differant region had their own version, and they're all right, but the vampires in one area is a differant race then another, so not all the lore applies to all races in general. I mean, they don't all drink blood, either. Some eat it solely, others, like these, only drink it as a sort of side dish, and some don't even bother with it and eat other things, and some avoid it almost religiously, and still others feed off emotians instead. They're called cubi, though, and the ones that feed off dreams are called dream eaters, and the ones that live here are called Vamplettes.

Vamplettes look a lot like ordinary vampires, but they're greyer around the edges, somehow, and they all look slightly feminine, and their hair never stops growing, so some of them have hair that drags behind them on land and billows around them in the water. Both the cubi and the dream eaters have wings, but the most powerful cubi only have four pairs, and dream eaters always have at least six. Three big pairs at the shoulder blades, and another little pair that kind of sticks out in front of the other pairs, and two more pairs at the lower back, at the bottom of the waist, a bigger pair and then a smaller beneath them, and there's always at least one pair busy keeping them off the ground because being on the ground is frightening for dream eaters. And there are other differances, too, Bob says. Cubi are too controlled by emotion, but Dreameaters are really calm and rational she says, and cubi are always either pretty or ruggedly handsome, but then she told me that Dream eaters just kind of look like normal people, but creepier. Paler, with naturally spiky hair and sharp teeth. Tattered around the edges. You have to look hard to realize that they're beautiful, and you have to want to see it. And they and the vamplettes are scared of sunlight, but cubi are fine with it, and obviously Vamplettes are fine with running water, but Cubi don't like being wet, even if it doesn't really hurt them. None of them have any particular adversion to garlic, but dream eaters don't like crosses, because they had a run in with several differant religions centuries ago and still hold the grudge against them.

Anyhow, fact of the matter is, vampires are somewhat interesting, and the water is calling. I take off the fancy beaded sashes and my leggings, but leave the last sash around my waist, because it's long enough to pass of as a short skirt like the girls wear when they swim, and I don't want to swim naked with a bunch of vampires. It's called being smart.

Bob is thrumming in my veins as I starts walking in, and I can feel that she wants out. She's had plenty of rest and she likes to swim too, so I agree and this time bite the back of my wrist, lighter this time, so only a little blood seeps out. Even then, the vampires around me are staring lustfully at my body, like they want nothing more then to whisk me away and feed off of me for all eternity, so I mentally urge Bob to come out sooner.

She sort of pours out and hits the water with a plop, the rest of her bright blue hair dripping from my hand like a string of saliva. She's in the form of a boy, almost a man, but I think I'll still call her a she, because the form is still girlier then even the feminine creatures around us. I've never seen her not girly, I think. She's always pretty. She doesn't have any eyebrows, and her hair is swept back like it's already wet, leaving her forhead almost bare except for a small black stone inbedded just between and a bit above her small, sparkly black eyes. Her body is long and slim, like fat doesn't exist on her, and it's all tanned and lightly muscled, with a completely flat chest and a slightly tilted neck that lends her a gracious air. But mostly I notice the fact that she has a tail. It starts at her waist, and is sort of like a fish's, but no fish I've ever seen. It's black and blue, like her curly waist length hair, but it's overburdened with frills and fins, all looking sharp enough to cut and patterned like a blue swallowtail, and it's longer then my body twice. She grinning at me with pale lips and straight white teeth, and she offers me a spidery hand with see through webbing between the fingers.

"Emerald, come on." She says, and her voice is a rough watery lilt, and she offers the other so she looks like she's waiting for a hug. "I'll take you to the bottom, and we can look at the fish.

That's another reason the vampires come here. They like to hunt the fish. I think I'm the only Ritan that can see the fish too, because when I tried to bring one home for a pet my parents just looked at me like I was crazy, and I eventually let it go.

I nod, and let her take me, and she wriggles her tail, struggling a bit to get out of the shallows, but then she gets in deeper and is fine.

"Take a deep breath," She orders, and I do, and then she drags me underwater, heading straight down. The water in the twin pools is only slightly murky, so the reason you can't see deeper down is because it's too dark. But Bob's forhead and fins light up, the stone and the blue parts, making it bright enough to see. Several fish swim up immediately and one brushes my face. He's lavender colored and has jagged dark purple stripes all over his body, and two particularly long fins on his sides that looks sort of like imp horns but solid all the way though, wheras imp horns tend to dissapear, sort of drip off into nothing, and then continue on a few inches further. His eyes light up when he sees I'm paying attention to him, and if fish could smile I think he'd be doing it.

None of the fish here look quite alike, and a few more brush up close now. A blue female with a glowing rhombas on her face, two twin orange ones, and one with colorful streaks and flower eye patterns, but by then I need air, so Bob wriggles her tail and shoots up through the water, bursting out and splashing all the Vamplettes nearby. Some glare, but one laughs, and makes his way over to us. I recognise him, we've spoken before, and I think his name is Denil. He has black hair, and it's cut stranglely, as long as his knees in some places, but shoulder length at others. He says he ties the long parts back when he's out of the water, and I've seen him use bird feathers to hold it. Not many Vamplettes cut their hair, they take pride in it being long, but Denil's is too, just not all of it, so he gets away with it last I saw. He has pale skin, like they all do, but his is covered in blue tatoos that look like ripples in the water, and snake scales. I think they're awesome.

"Greetings Em, how are ye on this fine evening?" Vamplettes talk like they're from a whole differant time, and they are. They're one of the oldest races.

"I am well. And you?" He laughes then, and I smile along, and Bob still had her arms around me.

"I am well." He replies, brushing back a longer chunk of hair and grinning sagely at me. They don't really have fangs like some vampire races, but even vamplettes have fairly sharp canines. But the grin means he means it, and that makes my smile grow.

"You're too naive." Bob tells me, shifting her grip on me, and I feel her tail fins start to scratch against me as she moves in the water to keep us afloat. "Indeed." Denil agrees, looking charming like always. "But that's what makes him better then the other humans. The promise of breaking that naivity and seeing his surely fascinating reaction." Bob nods in agreement.

I'm not sure I know what they mean, but I laugh and nod anyway.

xXx

So, another chapter? Somewhat?

... Yeah, I know. There is yet to be any plot in this story. I'm sorry. It'll happen eventually.

Please review, and thank you for your time!


	3. Chapter 3

"Emerald! Come in, it's dark!" My mother calls to me when she sees me, coming towards the house from the path. She must have amazing night vision, I think, if she can see me that well with just a lamp. Bob has amazing night vision too, trotting behind me in my favorite form, like a pretty star spangled fox with phosphorescent paws. She trills and darts in though the open door ahead of me heading straight to my, our, room, and mother follows me in, smiling softly. She can't even see Bob. She stops me in the kitchen with a tap on the shoulder.

"You're late, magelet." She always calls me magelet. Like I'm some sort of magician and bird hybrid. Like I'm part power, part eagle. Maybe she thinks I'm a phoenix. Phoenix is too good a name for those creatures, they're more like flaming chickens, and they're dumb, and they have terrible personalities. One flew over our house when I was young and let it's tail drag on the roof and and sang until Bob had a headache. It was a miracle our house was mostly unharmed, but I think that it's actually because Bob snarled at it until it left that our house still stands. She's always chasing things like that away. She never lets me near things like that, I think she's afraid they'll talk me into leaving her. I would never leave her, though. She's my unofficial world. So yeah, I got it. Phoenix's are bad, just like fairies, and unicorns, and elves, and pterippi. She hates them. She once told me it was because they were on the "Light side." I don't know what that is, but I got it. I'll stick to the imps, the vampires, the demons, the pixies, the "Dark side."

"Yeah, sorry." I tell my mother, before I get even more distracted by my thoughts. She looking as me funny now, and I grin like a normal child so she'll stop. It kind of works; she smiles back and relaxes a bit, but I can tell she's still worried.

"I got lost in the woods. I was playing by the pools, and there were bugs on the water, so I was chasing them." That sounds like something a normal boy would do, and apparently I'm right because she fully relaxes now.

"Oh. Well, go on up and get ready for bed." I nod and head into the next room. Our house is like all the other houses I've ever been in. Lots of rooms, all in a straight line, but not very tall. Mayle said once that houses in Birk sometimes have one room on top of another, stacked up, which seems silly to me. Why do that?

First I pass though my parents room, where my father is already asleep, and then there's mine. After that there are a few other rooms, but I never really care about them, since they're not important to me.

My room is big, I think, because it fits my cot, my chest, my dresser, and an old chair that used to belong to my grandfather easily enough. Bob is sitting on the chair now, still in fox form, curled up with one paw over her tail and her tail over her nose. Her tail is soft, and gets lighter towards the tip, blending from dark navy and fading into a muddy teal color. And the teal kind of shows up on her hind quarters too, marbled in like some painter took his paintbrush to her and tried to blend the colors, but stopped halfway.

"You never chase bugs, Em." She tells me first thing when I come in, and I shrug.

"I just wanted her to leave me alone." I say, and she sighes, and lifts her muzzle.

"You're too mature to chase bugs. Did she really beleive you?" I nod, and she sighs again. "Well that either means you're getting better at lying, you're getting better at using your looks, or your mother is losing her touch. I'm not sure which I prefer."

"I though you liked my looks." I complain, leaning over a bowl of water on my dresser. I know most people would think I was beautiful, regardless of what Bob says, but she looks so pretty, sitting there, that I can't help but feel a bit nervous. Her opinion matters the most, anyways. So I fix my hair, pushing the silky soft hair back into it's braid, and stare hard at my reflection.

My skin is dark, tanned like everyone in sunny Ardon is, but it's nowhere near as dark as most people have. It's just not as pale as Mayle and her mother have. My hair is pale though, and my eyebrows and lashes. It's funny, how that works. I have tanned skin and pale hair and ears, but Mayle had sugary skin and black ears, and the only reason her hair is yellow at all is because she washes it with vinegar and spends more time in the sun then even natives like us. And my face... I think it's good. My cheeks are kind of fatty, but I think it will go away when I get older. And my nose is red, but that's because I ran back from the pools. My ears are a little small, but they're pierced, and I wear little metal hooks, with biotite drops, and they stand out against the fur so you never notice that they're smaller then they should be. I twitch them at my reflection. My eyes, though, I like my eyes. My eyelashes are like my mothers, they go thick and short all around my eyes, like a frame. The color of my eyes isn't like hers are, though. No one knows where the color came from. I got my name from the color, Emerald. Father says he wanted to name me Zephaniah, like his father, but mother wouldn't let him. She saw my eyes and knew I was an Emerald. I stare at my eyes for a few more moments, then poke at the water so ripples will block out my reflection.

The water is cold.

I turn and look back at Bob, and realize she's been staring at me. She catches my gaze and holds it, looking ticked off.

"When did I ever say I didn't like how you look?" She says, looking oddly indignant.

"You...you didn't. It just sounded like you did." I'm probably pouting.

"Well, look at me, Emerald." I do, and she hops fluidly off of the chair, changing form before she even hits the floor with bare humanoid feet. Now she's more delicate then even her fox form. I've never seen her like this. My first thought is that she's even paler then me and Mayle combined. She's snow white, her skin, her hair, the jewels hanging in her hair, even her eyes. They look like milky glass marbles, not eyes.

She stalks over to me, because Bob always stalks, and her heels never touch the ground because she's so high on her toes that I can see her feet curve from between my fingers. I feel like a dwarf, just standing there, while she's as tall as my father.

"I love your looks." She tells me, leaning over me. "They're absolutely gorgeous and if you ever change them I'll eat you, because I refuse to live in a less then perfect host." Then she kisses my forehead and turns back into the pretty fox, and tumbles right back to the chair. I stand there for a few moments then hastily change into my nightshirt and wash my face with the cold water. Then I pull out my plait and blow out the two lamps on the walls, call goodnight to my mother, and nonchalantly grab Bob from the chair. I crawl in with her, and throw one leg over her.

I don't think Bob would ever eat me. I trust her more then that.

"I love your looks too." I whisper, and she turns over in my arms and licks my face.

"You're a brat."

"Thank you. Goodnight." I can hear her grumbling and growling for at least an hour before I fall asleep.

* * *

Don't trust random creatures that live inside you. Just saying. Especially if they're as vain as Bob is.

Thank you for your time!


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